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Kynurenic acid as a biochemical factor underlying the association between Western-style diet and depression: A cross-sectional study

Consumption of a Western-style diet (WS-diet), high in saturated fat and added sugar, is associated with increased depression risk. However, the physiological mechanisms underlying the relationship requires elucidation. Diet can alter tryptophan metabolism along the kynurenine pathway (KP), potentia...

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Autores principales: Francis, Heather M., Stevenson, Richard J., Tan, Lorraine S. Y., Ehrenfeld, Lauren, Byeon, Sooin, Attuquayefio, Tuki, Gupta, Dolly, Lim, Chai K.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9589270/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36299996
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.945538
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author Francis, Heather M.
Stevenson, Richard J.
Tan, Lorraine S. Y.
Ehrenfeld, Lauren
Byeon, Sooin
Attuquayefio, Tuki
Gupta, Dolly
Lim, Chai K.
author_facet Francis, Heather M.
Stevenson, Richard J.
Tan, Lorraine S. Y.
Ehrenfeld, Lauren
Byeon, Sooin
Attuquayefio, Tuki
Gupta, Dolly
Lim, Chai K.
author_sort Francis, Heather M.
collection PubMed
description Consumption of a Western-style diet (WS-diet), high in saturated fat and added sugar, is associated with increased depression risk. However, the physiological mechanisms underlying the relationship requires elucidation. Diet can alter tryptophan metabolism along the kynurenine pathway (KP), potentially linking inflammation and depression. This study aimed to examine whether urinary inflammatory markers and KP metabolites differed according to WS-diet consumption and depression severity. Depression symptoms and habitual WS-diet consumption were assessed in 169 healthy adults aged 17–35 recruited from two experimental studies. Targeted metabolomics profiling of seven KP metabolites, ELISA-based assays of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP) were performed using urine samples collected from the participants. Parametric tests were performed for group comparison and associations analysis. Multilevel mixed-effect modelling was applied to control for biases. Higher intake of WS-diet was associated with lower levels of neuroprotective kynurenic acid (KA; R = −0.17, p = 0.0236). There were no differences in IL-6 or CRP across diet groups (p > 0.05). Physical activity had negative associations with most KP metabolites. Mixed-effects regression analysis showed the glutamatergic inhibitor, KA, was the only biomarker to have a significant association with depression symptoms in a model adjusted for demographic and lifestyle variables: a unit increase in KA was associated with 0.21 unit decrease in Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 depression score (p = 0.009). These findings suggest that urinary KA is associated with both habitual WS-diet intake, and levels of depression symptoms, independent of inflammation. Findings support the role of neuroprotection and glutamatergic modulation in depression. We propose that KA may act as endogenous glutamatergic inhibition in regulating depression severity in the absence of inflammation. Further comparison with blood-based markers will assist in validating the utility of non-invasive urine samples for measuring KP metabolites.
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spelling pubmed-95892702022-10-25 Kynurenic acid as a biochemical factor underlying the association between Western-style diet and depression: A cross-sectional study Francis, Heather M. Stevenson, Richard J. Tan, Lorraine S. Y. Ehrenfeld, Lauren Byeon, Sooin Attuquayefio, Tuki Gupta, Dolly Lim, Chai K. Front Nutr Nutrition Consumption of a Western-style diet (WS-diet), high in saturated fat and added sugar, is associated with increased depression risk. However, the physiological mechanisms underlying the relationship requires elucidation. Diet can alter tryptophan metabolism along the kynurenine pathway (KP), potentially linking inflammation and depression. This study aimed to examine whether urinary inflammatory markers and KP metabolites differed according to WS-diet consumption and depression severity. Depression symptoms and habitual WS-diet consumption were assessed in 169 healthy adults aged 17–35 recruited from two experimental studies. Targeted metabolomics profiling of seven KP metabolites, ELISA-based assays of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP) were performed using urine samples collected from the participants. Parametric tests were performed for group comparison and associations analysis. Multilevel mixed-effect modelling was applied to control for biases. Higher intake of WS-diet was associated with lower levels of neuroprotective kynurenic acid (KA; R = −0.17, p = 0.0236). There were no differences in IL-6 or CRP across diet groups (p > 0.05). Physical activity had negative associations with most KP metabolites. Mixed-effects regression analysis showed the glutamatergic inhibitor, KA, was the only biomarker to have a significant association with depression symptoms in a model adjusted for demographic and lifestyle variables: a unit increase in KA was associated with 0.21 unit decrease in Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 depression score (p = 0.009). These findings suggest that urinary KA is associated with both habitual WS-diet intake, and levels of depression symptoms, independent of inflammation. Findings support the role of neuroprotection and glutamatergic modulation in depression. We propose that KA may act as endogenous glutamatergic inhibition in regulating depression severity in the absence of inflammation. Further comparison with blood-based markers will assist in validating the utility of non-invasive urine samples for measuring KP metabolites. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-10-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9589270/ /pubmed/36299996 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.945538 Text en Copyright © 2022 Francis, Stevenson, Tan, Ehrenfeld, Byeon, Attuquayefio, Gupta and Lim. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Nutrition
Francis, Heather M.
Stevenson, Richard J.
Tan, Lorraine S. Y.
Ehrenfeld, Lauren
Byeon, Sooin
Attuquayefio, Tuki
Gupta, Dolly
Lim, Chai K.
Kynurenic acid as a biochemical factor underlying the association between Western-style diet and depression: A cross-sectional study
title Kynurenic acid as a biochemical factor underlying the association between Western-style diet and depression: A cross-sectional study
title_full Kynurenic acid as a biochemical factor underlying the association between Western-style diet and depression: A cross-sectional study
title_fullStr Kynurenic acid as a biochemical factor underlying the association between Western-style diet and depression: A cross-sectional study
title_full_unstemmed Kynurenic acid as a biochemical factor underlying the association between Western-style diet and depression: A cross-sectional study
title_short Kynurenic acid as a biochemical factor underlying the association between Western-style diet and depression: A cross-sectional study
title_sort kynurenic acid as a biochemical factor underlying the association between western-style diet and depression: a cross-sectional study
topic Nutrition
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9589270/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36299996
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.945538
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